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Economists routinely make functional form assumptions on demand
curves to derive welfare conclusions. How sensitive are these conclusions
to such assumptions? In this paper, we develop robustness
measures that quantify the extent to which the true demand curve must
deviate from common functional form assumptions in order to overturn
a welfare conclusion. We parametrize this variability in terms of the
gradient and curvature of the demand curve. By leveraging tools from
information design, we show that our measures are easy to compute.
Our measures are also flexible and easy to use, as we illustrate through
empirical applications.
